Hi, i have a points file of employees and i want to find the a "central" location between them by the road. I want to find the shortess displacement for everybody to open a new office. I don't have any potential location yet. Any ideas?
Do you have the Network Analyst extension?
Do you need to 'weight' physical distance to account for travel time? (some roads are H* in the morning)
Is everyone driving? or is public transportation an issue?
A quick estimate would to produce a convex hull around the point address locations and find the 'centroid' of the Hull.
This would be a Euclidean estimate and not a road-based one, but it might get you ballpark-ish
Minimum Bounding Geometry—Data Management toolbox | ArcGIS Desktop
Another quick estimate can be obtained using the Central Feature tool with Manhattan Distance selected. Once you have a general central location, you can look for appropriate new office facilities. I hope this helps!